Meredith Vieira’s Kids Make Her So Happy: Get to Know Her and Late Husband Richard’s Children

Family is everything to Meredith Vieira. Her three kids — Gabriel, Lily and Benjamin Cohen, whom she shares with late husband Richard Cohen — are her greatest achievement, and Meredith wouldn’t want it any other way.

Meredith says being a mom to her kids made her appreciate everything her mother did for her as a little girl. “Once I became a mom myself; that all I really wanted to be was her,” a source previously told Closer Weekly. I was saying I don’t want to do that, I want to go out in the world and be a professional, or whatever the heck that is and once I became a mom I just wanted to emulate my mom and her values and what she instilled in her kids.”

Richard died on Christmas Eve in 2024, “surrounded by his family and love” after battling pneumonia for two months.

Benjamin Cohen

Benjamin is the oldest of his siblings. When he left to go to college, his mom didn’t know how much she was going to miss him until he was gone. “I think I’ve put my emotions — and the real sense of loss I’ve been feeling — on the back burner,” Meredith once wrote in her journal, according to People. “I ask myself, ‘Why am I feeling anxious?’ I think it’s because, for all my bravado, deep down I’m just really sad. I’m not showing that to Ben, of course — I don’t want him to see that.”

Although Ben doesn’t live at home with his mom, he had been calling her while she quarantined with Richard during the coronavirus outbreak. “We do Zoom and we talk every day,” she told Closer.

Meredith became an empty nester once her kids left for college, but even though they’re not living with her anymore, she talks to them frequently.

“It has reached the point, I was saying to a friend … [Lily will] call me or I’ll call her and say, ‘What’s new?’ And I’ll say, ‘Nothing, what’s new with you?’ And she says, ‘Nothing, OK bye!’ We no longer do all the little small talk, but we talk every single day,” Meredith gushed to Closer Weekly.

Gabriel Cohen

Gabe is the middle child in the family. In April 2019, his mom announced he got engaged to former KHQ reporter, Alli Flicker. “A few weeks ago, I was here and I was talking to Hoda and I told her I had a secret,” Meredith said during a previous episode of Today with Hoda & Jenna. “And I couldn’t tell anybody. And we were talking about how hard it is to keep a secret. But now I can tell everybody. My son Gabe … got engaged.”

The doting explained he popped the question to Allie by a beautiful “little lake” and then gave the journalist his mother’s ring. How cute!

Lily Cohen

Lily is the honest one in the family. During a previous episode of The Meredith Vieira Show, Lily took fans inside her mom’s kitchen and showed them just how unorganized Meredith really is. “We’ve got a bunch of the same empty [salad dresser bottles,]” she explained while holding them up to the camera. “Because why throw it away when you can keep it in your fridge?”

After that, Lily showed off her mom’s pantry and said it sort of looked like a “fraternity house.” LOL. But the best part was when she went to Meredith’s stove and called it “the scene of a crime” because her mom tried to make their family a steak “45 minutes” after they already ordered Chinese food. What a fun story to tell at dinner parties!

Meredith also told Closer that she likes that her daughter is a “smart kid” and “has always surrounded herself with really good friends.” Sounds like Lily takes after her mom!